JORHAT, Jan 2 - Jorhat Medical College and Hospital has achieved a milestone as its neurosurgeon Dr Amrit Kumar Saikia, who is also instrumental in establishing the Neurosurgery department, carried out two rare surgeries, both the surgeries being done for the first time in Assam.
Dr Satyajit Rabha, a neurosurgeon of the Neurosurgery department assisted Dr Saikia in both the operations.
Both the surgeries were carried out with the help of computer-aided navigation system.
Dr Saikia told this newspaper that the craniovertebral junction surgery performed on a 38-year-old male patient from the district on December 27 was a delicate procedure accomplished with the aid of a computer.
The neurosurgeon said if the surgery was not done on the patient, then he (patient) would have suffered from paralysis or even lost his life.
Dr Saikia said that the set-up to perform such kind of a surgery was installed at the JMCH for the first time in the State.
Saikia operated on the patient with the computer-guided navigation. The neurosurgeon further said that the cost of an operation of such a nature could go up to lakhs of rupees outside Assam but since the man was covered by the Atal Amrit Abhiyan insurance scheme, the cost was minimum.
In the other operation, conducted about 15 days back, he and Dr Rabha did an intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring of the brain (mapping of the brain), so that important parts of the brain which regulate the major systems of the human body were bypassed while taking out a tumour.
The tumour was found to be cancerous so the patient has been sent for radiotherapy.
State Health and Family Welfare Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in a tweet has congratulated the feat of Saikia and his team.
It may be mentioned here that Dr Saikia has been working in the JMCH since June 2015 and conducting surgeries selectively with the assistance of the Surgery department before the Neurosurgery department was opened in July, 2018.
